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    <h3 align="center">The Theory of Fantasy and Science Fiction Worlds</h3>
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      <div class="citation"><p>
      &quot;Two Ways To Create Your Fantasy World!&quot; Writing 23.2 (2000): 12. Professional         
      Development Collection. Web. 5 Mar. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;2012.
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This article discusses two tactics that enhance an author&apos;s portrayal of a fantastical world for his or her audience. The first suggestion the anonymous writer makes is to mix objective and impressionist styles, utilizing them appropriately when describing characters or setting. Objectivity lends the reader a realistic picture of the object in question, as if he or she were a fly on the wall peering out into the world and observing events that occur from the outside looking in. This type of perspective is comparable to a photograph&dash;it accurately describes the subject and allows the reader to interpret any feeling or meaning from it. Impressionism, on the other hand, is much more like a painting. <table class="image" align="right" width="300px"><tr><td><img src="hogwarts1.jpg" width="300" height="200"/></td></tr><tr><td><img src="hogwarts2.jpg" width="300px" height="200px"/></td></tr><tr><td class="caption"><h6>[1] [2] These two images convey different ideas about Hogwarts from <i>Harry Potter</i>. The first celebrates its beauty while the second emphasizes its mystery.</h6></td></tr></table>Being charged with emotion, it obscures the character or setting in a way that suggests to the reader what he or she should think about it. In impressionism, details are omitted from description, but emotion and feeling (and sometimes audition) are emphasized throughout it. The second point the writer makes is to incorporate both the real and the fantastical inside the fantasy world. By expanding on the audience&apos;s knowledge or feelings of something in the real world and giving it imagined qualities, this technique can serve to make the world a more immersive and believable place.
	</p><p>While this article is directly discussing the approaches of describing a fantastical realm in writing, the same techniques can apply to the sole creation of a world and its visual representation, and additionally, the two ideas can be combined. The real can be emphasized with an objective style in discussion or display, allowing the audience to focus on the reality of the object, while the fantastical qualities of the &quot;non&dash;real&quot; elements can be enhanced by impressionism, appearing a bit dark in some situations, or otherwise very mystical (smoke or fog surrounding them seems to achieve this many times). Our group, as creators, may choose to include, leave out, or obscure certain details about the world in order to create a more immersive experience for the audience. For example, if a dark, evil, mystical super villain exists in our world, rather than describe him objectively, we could describe him as if he were surrounded with an aura of dark clouds, giving him a sinister appearance, yet obfuscating some detail from the audience&apos;s visualization of him.
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Liljenberg, Michael J. &quot;Creating Fantasy and Science Fiction Worlds.&quot; Elfwood. Elfwood Corporation. 
Web. 06 Mar. 2012. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;http://www.elfwood.com/farp/thewriting/liljenbergworlds/index.html&gt;.
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  <p>
  This webpage discusses specific techniques and points to remember when designing a world of fantasy or science fiction. It begins by stating that fiction is ultimately founded on its plot, characters, setting, and theme. The most prominent and unique of these in fantasy and science fiction is setting. Therefore, in order for a fantasy or science fiction story to be successful, much thought and work must go into the production of its setting. Liljenberg states that the central strategy to creating a realistic, believable, consistent world is to build the entire world, even if it may not all be mentioned in the world&apos;s presentation. He also mentions that modeling parts of a world after parts of the real world or already existing fiction can aid the effectiveness of the setting. For example, <i>The Lord of the Rings&apos;s</i> plot is greatly enhanced by its setting in Middle Earth because the reader already has certain preexisting ideas that go along with that type of setting. Liljenberg models his discussion of the key elements of world building after the way God created the world in Genesis. These elements include magic (and technology) and the rules governing it, physics and universal laws of nature, geography, society, and zoology. 
	</p><p>This webpage is very applicable to our world because it offers direct advice to us as world builders. In implementing a kind of magic in our world, we first need to fully understand for ourselves how it is going to work. What are the rules for this magic? What are the limitations of it? While these may not ever be explained directly to our audience, this understanding is necessary for us to keep our world consistent&dash;a vital quality for a fantasy world. Another point Liljenberg makes is to consider the geography and its effects on the world. We can take this into account when designing the map for our world, and we may also deal with the change of geography (and also of society) over time.  Another important part of a world is the social structure and qualities of the people in it, and these traits may differ depending on the society. We can work to enrich the culture of the societies in our world, creating alliances and/or hostility amongst different nations. The author reminds the reader to consider the weather in the world. In novels, the weather is often a reflection of the general mood of the story or the emotions of the protagonist at a certain point in time. When designing our world, I believe we can use weather (or, rather, climate) to emphasize a long&dash;term sense of emotion pertaining to different locations; a city associated with danger or doom could perhaps always experience stormy, turbulent weather, for example.
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  <div class="citation"><p>
Douglass, Sara. &quot;Creating the Fantasy World.&quot; Sara Douglass Official Web Site. Sara Douglass 
Enterprises, 2006. Web. 07 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Mar. 2012. &lt;http://www.saradouglass.com/createw.html&gt;.
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<p>
	In this webpage, Douglass offers suggestions to take into account when designing a world of fantasy. Her main points cover a variety of specifics such as landscape and physical world design, races and societies, and religion and magic. She suggests that the world builder should create a map of his or her world before doing anything else with it, positing that possessing at least a mental visualization of the world will aid the creation of the other elements of the world. Douglass also states to consider seasons and weather, as they affect characters from the world. <table class="images" align="left" width="300px"><tr><td><img src="pokemon.png" /></td></tr><tr><td class="caption"><h6>[3] <i>Pokemon</i> takes the weather into account when determining the advantages of different monsters.</h6></td></tr></table> can also play an important role in a world. Differences between races create tensions between societies&dash;whether moral, religious, or simply cultural. While talking of society in worlds, Douglass reminds the reader to remain consistent with his or her choices throughout their creation. For instance, if the world has magic, should not the characters use it in everyday tasks? And if not, the reader should know why that is so. The author recommends fleshing out other elements of the culture of society, including religion and language. These characteristics are all influenced by the surrounding environs and situation of a culture and must remain consistent with the world that has been creative.
	</p><p>As the author recommends, our group&apos;s initial step was to create a map of our world, and she is correct in that it makes the development of the rest of the world less difficult&dash;many more ideas came after our basic map was constructed. We also took the environment and weather into account in our world. As we continue to develop it, a major part of our world will focus on the different societies inhabiting different locations throughout the world&dash;we will need to concentrate on giving each of the groups unique, rich qualities in order to enhance the believability of the world. This webpage has also reminded me to double check the group&dash;s work and assert that every little idea that we implement exists consistently throughout the world so that it is not the case that some societies arbitrarily have different technology or magic than others&dash;should any of these holes be noticed by the audience, the &quot;suspense of disbelief&quot; is immediately halted, and the world will no longer be meaningful.
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  <div class="citation"><p>
Schmidt, Stanley. &quot;About Science Fiction.&quot; <i>Analog Science Fiction & Fact</i> &lpar;2001&rpar;: 4&dash;6. ProQuest  
Research Library. Web. 8 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Mar. 2012.
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In this article, Schmidt addresses a question from the readers of Analog&dash;&quot;What is science fiction?&quot; He begins by discussing the purpose of science fiction, naming two primary components: It serves to entertain its audience, and it provokes thought about the possibilities of the future, whether wonderful breakthroughs of science or horrible consequences of our own innovations.  Science fiction is about exploring worlds in which what may not be possible yet (or ever) is in fact possible and may be even widespread. Schmidt states that the genre may choose the current world as a starting point, since the future will be created by the present. Now, specific current events or politics or similar elements of the current world should not be used, but, rather, generalities (Schmidt suggests the omnipresence of the Internet as an example). Schmidt sees science fiction &quot;as a tool for dealing with subject matter beyond itself,&quot;&dash;as a method to examine the future with an open mind, and, of course, to entertain the reader with a creative, new world.
</p><p>While this article talks of science fiction and my group plans on constructing a fantasy world, we can still learn from its discussion of the purpose of science fiction, and, by extension, fantasy. Our world may be of fantasy, but it directly relates to the concept that human behavior could possibly affect the way the world functions in the future. We can emphasize the similarities between the behavior of the characters in our world and that of the inhabitants of our world, and then show&dash;with some exaggeration, of course&dash;the potential consequences of those behaviors. The idea for our world is founded on an environment that reflects its inhabitants&apos; emotions. This concept plays off of the common purpose of weather in novels to symbolically represent the emotional state of the protagonist, or the mood of the book at that point in the plot. Our world can serve as a type of warning to society to alter some way that we currently operate for the better, for the current situation may, with time, yield adverse outcomes. 
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<div id="footnotes">
[1] http://images.wikia.com/harrypotter/images/0/04/Hogwarts.jpg <br />
[2] http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs11/i/2006/201/b/4/hogwarts_by_dean1029.jpg <br />
[3] http://www.serebii.net/games/raindance.png<br />
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